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Help talk:Linking to episodes and films
Over the past few days, some of us discussed on IRC a possible new way to handle episode references. Right now, standard way to include episode references is a simple text note at the end of a paragraph. The appearance of this is not supposed to change with this suggestion, but templating it can help with the following: ;Formatting: Using a template call instead of text will make it easier to have a standard format throughout. ;Article disambiguation: With the template, links to episode articles will get disambiguated (added "(episode)" suffix) automatically, if necessary. No need for user intervention. ;Image categorization: On image description pages, this reference template will automatically include a categorization by episode ("Category:Memory Alpha Images (SER: Episode)") Usage Very straightforward. For a simple episode reference (notice disambiguation here): ; : Result: For more than one episode: ; : Result: For references from different series, combine different templates manually: ; ; : Result: ; Similarly, a template for film references was created to go with this: ; : Result: ; : Result: As you can see, the parentheses around the template calls would still need to be included manually. This is done for technical reasons, but also looks better in the wikicode. Right now, the existing "series" templates can handle up to three episode references each. This can be changed if necessary, but discussion has come up about the necessity of this. There are reference lists having more than a dozen items - but shouldn't these be split up anyway, so that they are worth something? Restrictions Creating a template that will be put on virtually every page we have can lead to some server issues if done wrong. I was told that this shouldn't pose any problem in "normal" day-to-day work, but it can't hurt to take some steps to assure it will stay that way: *The reference templates need to be protected, to prevent vandals from changing the templates after they are already put to use on thousands of pages *The templates shouldn't be changed too often: If you can think about a necessary change, tell us now. Later, changes should be discussed before being implemented! *We thought about creating just one template that the other six "series" templates call internally. While this would mean that only one template needs to be changed, it would also mean that any change to that template would invalidate all pages we have. Having six independent templates may work a little better in that regard. Templates *Template:TOS *Template:TAS *Template:TNG *Template:DS9 *Template:VOY *Template:ENT *Template:Film -- Cid Highwind 12:22, 7 January 2007 (UTC) Discussion I fully support this. Standardizing the format of the references automatically and not having to remember the disambigs will make it easier for new users. While they may have trouble implementing it when creating a new article, they usually aren't using the existing citation system anyways. When editing existing articles, new users will do what they do know, and look at the code for the other citations in the article, and copy it. I am going to guess that this will be implemented in existing articles by a bot? --OuroborosCobra talk 12:36, 7 January 2007 (UTC) :Yes, changing existing references could and should be done by a bot - in most cases, anyway. A bot might miss existing non-standard references, and any references exceeding the hard-coded limit mentioned above should probably be checked manually in any case. -- Cid Highwind 12:43, 7 January 2007 (UTC) ::As it seems there is an additional space before the comma, after the quotation mark. This shouldn't be there: it should look like ", Other than that, should the film template maybe be also be able to catch ? -- Kobi 16:19, 7 January 2007 (UTC) :Done and done. :) -- Cid Highwind 16:40, 7 January 2007 (UTC) :::I also concur with using this as I personally think it's a good idea. - Enzo Aquarius 16:41, 7 January 2007 (UTC) ::::I'm not 100% in support of this. However, I can't really pin down why it's a bad idea yet. However, here are some things that I think we should consider if we go for it: ::::* I'm thinking the template should have } as the default instead of that joke I put in there. However, it's locked to me now. :( ::::* There might-could be some literal ref template. Something that just returns }, but leaves it marked as a ref. Like . However, I'm not sure. ::::* We need some way to dstinguish rematered TOS from TOS. Before this template thing was started, I liked this way (TOS: "Miri" remastered). However, that doesn't really fit into the template. However, neither does TOS-R or some other method. However, --Bp 19:01, 7 January 2007 (UTC) ::::However, already exists. So it would have to be or something. --Bp 19:08, 7 January 2007 (UTC) :::::Maybe as someone suggested that as a possible TOS remastered abbreviation. Anyway, I support this template.--Tim Thomason 19:31, 7 January 2007 (UTC) ::::: I fixed the "joke" as Bp's suggestion would allow to expand movies, such as: :::::* :::::* ::::: See.--Tim Thomason 19:44, 7 January 2007 (UTC) :In that case, I'' am not sure this is a good idea. This whole "episode reference" idea was born as a method to A) streamline the majority of references we have and B) allow us to create something like "image categories by episode". We don't really need a film template for part A (although it is a nice thing to have), but we need it for part B... We don't need either A or B in other cases (such as the "Trekkies" reference above, which shouldn't be a in-universe inline reference like the others anyway), so allowing free-text for that template would be counter-productive in my opinion. Using a default "fallback" link to a page that doesn't exist (or even place "Category:Memory Alpha pages needing citation" there to make articles using the template in a wrong way appear in a PNA category) should be the preferred method. -- Cid Highwind 20:36, 7 January 2007 (UTC) :Regarding the "TOS remastered" links, this is a really special case. First, we should decide whether we want a different reference there ''at all. I know it's being done in some cases at the moment, but I also know we decided to handle the "remastered" version of an episode and the "original" equally. If there's some information that can only be found in one of those two versions, this difference should be noted on the one episode page we have, anyway - and if we do that, do we really want go through the hassles of another template? :However, if we do want that, another template, "STR" or "TOS-R", would be very easy to create. It would link to the same TOS episodes anyway, and would just need to add the string "(remastered)" after each call to . -- Cid Highwind 20:45, 7 January 2007 (UTC)